


Life Itself

by nimrodcracker



Category: Divinity: Original Sin 2
Genre: A Fix-It (Kinda), Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, F/F, Sebille POV, Stream of Consciousness, spoilers for entire game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-09 07:20:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13476495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimrodcracker/pseuds/nimrodcracker
Summary: For all the names marring her forearms, there's one name she doesn't stitch.Lohse gets possessed at The Black House.





	Life Itself

**Author's Note:**

> There is a disturbing lack of fic in the divinity tag, and this aims to fix that. Wrote this while listening to Spanish Sahara by Foals, have a [listen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYoINidnLRQ&hl=en-GB&gl=SG).
> 
> /still halfway thru my 2nd run with sebille as a companion, so if there are lore inconsistencies - i know. ill defo tweak 'em when im done, just watch this space.

She's murdered hundreds to stand where she is now, Source thrumming in her veins and Godhood exuding from her skin; demons and individuals and all manner of ilk between her and Divinity. They had to be swept aside, and so she did - unflinchingly, clinically.  _Fatally_. Because there can only be one.

She's also killed hundreds of kin, needle between forefinger and thumb, commanded by her Master and herself powerless to resist. One by one they fall, and her right forearm sketches the bloody path she treads. Yet, she doesn't regret. Not even after Saheila's revelation, not even when she torches the Mother Tree in vindicative defiance; a final desecration to sever the bonds that bind her kin to the yoke of a tyrannical Mother. Because there can only be one.

With a life like this, Sebille does not love. She cannot possibly love another if she doesn't love life itself.

+

And yet, she does.

For ginger hair streaked with white, voice as airy as the heart that resides within. A heart that stirs something in Sebille that she hasn't felt in a while; a rush of-

Affection.

She can.

Even with the blood of innocents dripping from her fingers and heart blackened by sin, she does. For innocence that must not be squashed, that persistent thought that redemption lies in reversing what horrors one used to wreak; for her, to hold sacrosanct what she used to defile.

Life itself.

Lohse warns her, tells her about the demon wrapped around her heart, but Sebille does not listen. Doesn't truly listen. She chooses to love, even if Tir-Cendelius himself rages within her ribs to end Lohse before this…  _thing_  between them escalates, and maybe it's through such radical kindness that Sebille sees herself forgiven. Words cannot express how she longs for that.

_Could you stop me? Really stop me? If it came to that…_

_I will_ , Sebille remembers answering.  _Without hesitation_.

+

Sebille sees her, ever since the Merryweather.

As an assassin, she's trained to notice things. The twitch in one's hand, the hitch in one's breath; the little tells that people reveal, at which, she  _pounces_  - oftentimes, straight for their throat with her needle outstretched.

So it isn't hard to see the torment lurking in Lohse's eyes, past the cheery facade and the withering exterior, and she knows,  _knows_ , that there's more to that than simple mirth. She catches Lohse staring at her the night before, after all, and Sebille admits; it's intriguing.

And despite herself, despite her immediate instinct to work alone without potential liabilities, Sebille doesn't just walk past Lohse and her gaggle of children to some Magister's office.

She walks right into her.

+

Lohse's that bard famous all over Rivellon, Sebille discovers. She  _sings._

(But she learns it while pressing a needle to Lohse's neck and holding her up in a stranglehold, so maybe she's better off repressing that particular memory. For both their sakes.)

Perhaps it's that, or her sunshine of a personality that draws Sebille close. She teaches Sebille about the spine and the meat of any song, and in time, Sebille starts composing a song of her own too. Words clumsily threaded together, radically different from her usual brand of needlework, but Lohse is nothing but encouraging.

Sebille learns that songs can be pleasant too.

+

Even before they put a name to the feelings between them, all they share are stolen glances and the occasional touch.

Sebille smells interest when she sees it, and it isn't like Lohse's subtle about it. Only someone with both eyes and ears gouged out would miss the longing looks and delightful stuttering. Cute, given Lohse's penchant for snark and wordplay - the bard's such a mess around Sebille.

She has no reason to, but Sebille…reciprocates.

She puts a little tenderness into her touches, where for others it's to overwhelm with her confidence and sudden closeness. (Oh, how  _intoxicating_  they smell, the fear oozing off their skin like oil; Sebille's tempted to flick her tongue just for a taste.) Nor does she let her words callously fly like she does for lizards and slavers - Lohse  _is_  worth the extra care.

The bard learns to mask her feelings better - or the demon's grip tightens over her soul - but some things even demons can't hide away.

If human expressions are anything to go by, Lohse's enjoying it. Immensely. What woman flushes tomato red from a simple touch, anyway?

+

The thing about being a slave is this: the shackles may be gone, but the fear never recedes. Where will she hear  _his_ song? Who will sing it to her? Can she trust this person she's just met? Can she trust herself to break free? What if she can't?

"How will the dice roll?" Sebille whispers to the sea, fingers rubbing the chipped surface of her dice.

Anticipation. It's the Void-cursed anticipation of the future that makes loving Lohse agonising.

From the moment Jahan pulls her aside to warn her that Lohse should  _never_  be allowed to ascend, Sebille knows. She knows it like the inevitable shredding within her whenever she displeases the Master; something that'll leave her writhing on the floor. That there will come a reckoning where she has to relive the grief of bearing witness to decisions beyond her control, trapped in her head while her body just-  _moves_.

Jahan's words petrify her moreso than the taste of rotten corpses, simply for speaking the truth.

 _You must be ready to be the death of Lohse_.

+

(She's suspected that, on some level, when Lohse goes berserk with Saheila back in Fort Joy. That there's a  _thing_  inside Lohse which has Sebille itching for her dagger - every. Single. Night. When Lohse's asleep a bedroll away.

Yet, Sebille doesn't do more than sleep with a dagger in her sleeve; nothing quite different from twirling her needle in the familiar crook of her fingers till sleep claims her.)

+

Embarrassing, really, the way all sense leaves Sebille the moment Lohse drops unconscious after Jahan's face-off with Adramahlihk; muttering assurances and being affectionate in a way she doesn't remember being able to after the Master scoured her memories.

Before, a fog would fill her brain, save the moments when the Master's song rang in her ears - the hypnotic tune dashing away the fuzziness stuffing her head.

Now, the fog has receded somewhat, but the numbness remains.

Holding a sobbing Lohse in her arms, there's an unexpected nothingness in her chest that's…

_Crushing._

It takes Sebille hours to realise that she's feeling terrified over the prospect of losing someone.

+

If only her Master could see her now.

Oh, how he'd sneer at her, before summoning a fresh wave of pain with a sharp claw twisting into her scarred cheek.

+

Sebille doesn't pray. To her, the Seven forsook her the moment the Master had Stingtail brand her cheek with that hideous scar - what God would desert those in their greatest moment of need?

(Source-suckers, that is.)

But she does now. All Seven of them, on the Nameless Isle.

Sebille loathes what they are, and what they've done - Tir-Cendelius no better than a slaver arrogantly draped in divine vestments - but she does, in hopes that they'd grant the one wish she never thought she'd fathom.

Life itself.

+

Her Master has no hold on her. Never has, and never will.

He sings that song; the song to curl her toes in sheer dread enough to feel herself waver, but she's ready. She has a plan.

Lohse hums behind her, a song of betrayal and liberation;  _her_  song, and Sebille joins in, voice rising steadily as she readies her dagger arm.

The brain fog doesn't come.

The Shadow Prince's slitted pupils dilate in horror as she takes a step closer.

Sebille grins, sharp teeth showing. "Surprise."

Then, she lunges.

+

Surprising even herself, Sebille beats Lohse to those three words. But something about besting Gods and Titans and discovering truths unravelling the very threads sewing Rivellon together drives beings into the strangest of behaviours - and for that, Sebille is grateful.

She interrupts Lohse's nervous rambling with a simple  _I love you,_  and Lohse's amazement melts Sebille's heart.

And for just one night, one sliver of respite, they finally  _know_  each other; exploring themselves in the candlelight with a soft intimacy that arises from an unshakeable bond. Not once have they given up on themselves - despite the demons, baggage, and terrors of being Godwoken in a realm hostile to their kind. Caging horrors inside them that consumes lesser beings; it's an experience that Sebille finds alienating, like looking on from behind a glass wall as the world passes her by.

Then, she met Lohse.

Sebille's disinclined towards soppy metaphors, but- but this time,  _soulmates_  doesn't ring hollow like it used to.

As she lays curled into Lohse's sleeping form, arms wrapped protectively around her, Sebille wonders if her resolute  _I will_ has irrevocably changed.

+

Time. All Sebille wants is  _more time._

+

Maybe there's a chance. Maybe they  _will_  have time.

Malady takes them to Adramahlihk's personal realm and she snuffs out all the candles with magic rain.

Lohse takes a bit of persuading before accepting Malady's offer, but Sebille thinks she's already decided - she just needed a moment to process the guilt of murdering countless more to save herself. And the entire realm, of course.

They walk right into Doctor Daeva's residence with backs straight, and that's their last mistake.

Arrogance, thinking being Godwoken grants them power surpassing mere immortals and weakened demons - realising too late that Jahan's nowhere to be found.

+

Sebille's worst fears come to pass.

It's the tingling of Source on her teeth that clues her in; how energy is harnessed before it explodes.

Just as the last nurse gurgles their last, Sebille's dagger ripping across their throat, the tingle balloons out into a scream.

 _Lohse's_  scream.

When she turns, Adramahlihk is missing. There's only… Lohse, but not quite, towering over them with lips pulled into a cruel smirk and hands raising her staff high which she slams end-first on the ground.

Sebille's world explodes.

When she comes to, coughing dust and dirt out of her throat, Lohse's gone. Only the bodies of dead elves surround her, while Fane and The Red Prince groggily come to their senses, wood chips and dust sliding off their shoulders. A stench hangs in the air, and it reeks - of blood, rot, and a miscellany of smells that Sebille's elven senses refuse to identify.

The energy had been necromancy. And the spell? One to dominate minds; to  _possess_.

Lohse's one, true fear.

Sebille wonders if she'll see her ever again.

+

 Where

Is

_Lohse?_

+

After seeing her injured companions back to the Lady Vengeance, Sebille frees Adramahlihk's captives by her lonesome, unable and unwilling to bear the presence of others in her foul mood.

She torches his grotesque dungeon with cursed fire grenades in a fury, wishing the flames could shrivel up the lump of hurt in her chest too. If she can't get him, she can get all the extravagant baubles else he owns. And when she  _does_  get him, she'll strap him down and use only her needle - and a never-ending roll of thread - to stitch on his skin exactly what she feels about him.

 _Never_  anger an assassin.

Jahan watches her impassively from the top of the stairs, taking in the utter violence unfolding before him without a word. He waits for Sebille to finish acting out her guilt and horror before hobbling down to her, voice as gravelly as Tenebrium.

"It is not the end. You know what Adramahlihk craves, more than anything."

Divinity. Even a child can guess that.

"He'll be at Lucian's crypt, then?" Sebille kicks at charred flesh clinging to the wall, flesh spawned of the Void. It dissolves as ash between her toes, inexplicably  _cold_  to her skin.

A curt nod. "I believe you'll meet him there."

+

Sebille hears voices in her dreams; skittering at the back of her mind, too inchoate to be discerned. Probably the memories of her race, or of her victims over the years. Ultimately, she isn't bothered by them; these familiar companions in her head. They say their piece and go.

After The Black House, there's a new voice.

If she concentrates hard enough, it's the same two words, over and over.

+

  _help_

 _me_  

+

Save that night of bliss, all they share are stolen glances and the occasional touch.

And that's all Sebille has to remember Lohse by.

She kills -  _has killed_  - for love. For the embarrassing, child-like craving for affection from her Master, for her survival, for salvation for her elven kin. Mercy killings too, for individuals desiring death over more pain.

Now, she'll kill her dearest; dagger lodged hilt-deep in her heart. Lohse's heart, but Sebille feels one in hers too even if her armour is whole and there's only air around her torso. Even if she's yet to make the killing blow.

Jahan had prepared her for the eventually that Adramahlihk would appear, like the parasite he is, and the demon does, stepping out of a portal into the middle of chaos; a Void Worm, an Eternal, the apparently not-dead Divine, Braccus Rex, and a gaggle of Godwoken clashing over Divinity on some Void-tainted hellscape deep in the caverns under the Grand Cathedral.

He wears the face of Lohse, and it pains Sebille to see gray veins twisting across her features; mangling that generous smile and wide-eyed innocence layered over unflinching, inner steel. Over a kind soul who's shown Sebille kindness even before she can deem herself worthy of any.

And he's here to kill everyone.

Sebille steels herself for the inevitable.

Her lover, her responsibility.

+

As an assassin, Sebille can think of a hundred ways to kill. Twenty to prolong suffering, seven to loosen tongues.

A few ways to a painless death - but only one in this instant.

That's when Sebille hurls her dagger straight for Lohse's heart, biting down the guilt rising in her throat because  _she doesn't hesitate_. She's a free elf now, but of all habits to stick from her past, it's her compulsion to keep to promises; in her mind, they're no different than orders.

Lohse's voice lingers in her ears.  _Could you stop me? Really stop me? If it came to that…_

Sebille's aim is true. Mercifully true.

Lohse staggers and flops over uneven stone, the fight sucked out of her, and Sebille is there -  _always_  there - to catch her in her arms. Drags her into the shadow of the Divine's throne for a moment's peace, too, despite the debris falling from the sky.

She looks into Lohse's eyes - wide-eyed and dazed,  _but not black_  - and presses her forehead to Lohse's. But it's Lohse who mouths her words first, blood dribbling down her lips.

_I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough, Chief._

"You'll be okay, darling," Sebille whispers, but Lohse's eyes glaze over.

As the sounds of battle fade out to Lohse's weakening heartbeat, Sebille wonders if Divinity is worth the price it demands.

 _Has_  demanded.

+

For all the names marring her forearms, there's one name she doesn't stitch.

 _Can't_  stitch.

+

Now, Sebille ascends: from Godwoken to Divine. All the world's Source in her grasp, all of Rivellon's inhabitants subjects to her whim. A chance to cleanse the rot poisoning the world; of shameful histories and despicable tyrants wielding power to subjugate for self-serving ends. Magisters, The Black Ring, The Paladin Order…all of them,  _all of them_  complicit in the chaos swallowing their world. Divine judgement will be rendered, and Sebille will sunder even the Void if that will right past wrongs. The horrors of Deathfog on her people  _will_  be answered for.

There's every reason to celebrate, to love the dawning of a new era.

But she doesn't love. She only mourns.

+

Of what use is Divinity; of  _Godhood_ , if it cannot resurrect the dead? Within her simmers the consciousness of an entire race, across time, across space, yet- there are no answers. She cannot mend the unwilling.

Turns out, Sebille didn't kill her. Her strike had failed to kill her love. The dagger wound is replaced by salve-soaked bandages, and mockingly so, as the body hosting it slumbers in too a deep coma that no healer can diagnose nor fix; a coma that has Lohse neither dead nor alive.

But as Divine, Sebille knows the truth: a struggle between Godwoken and a Demon rages beneath that serene exterior.

At Jahan's suggestion, Lohse's comatose form resides in one of the sealed-off wings in Arx's Grand Cathedral, barricaded by Tenebrium-lined walls in the tiniest possibility that should she wake, it wouldn't be Lohse.  _If_  she wakes. Truthfully, a most unwise decision, given the political fallout should Arx be levelled by a rampaging Godwoken Demon sheltered by the  _Divine_  for personal reasons, no less.

But none dare speak against a God.

All Sebille can do is wait.

+

Sometimes, she hums songs they both know by Lohse's bedside. If not to wake her, then an asinine hope that somehow, somewhere, she can hear her. But mostly, Sebille sings to fill the aching silence of an absent partner.

Sometimes, she reminds herself that Lohse's twitching eyelids or the rise and fall of her chest are just tricks of the light. Of Her light, blinding any nearby with her Divine radiance.

+

Amadia visits her in a dream one night.

Sebille doesn't recognise her, at first. As far as she's concerned, the Seven were felled by her hand in the crumbling ruins of The Arena of One; a fact that Malady gleefully rubs in everytime they meet.

Goddess Amadia, whose shrine in the Hollow Marshes Sebille defiled with her lingering thoughts of vengeance, isn't the frail matriarch she met at the Nameless Isle. She looks - younger, less wrinkles on her skin and a twinkle in her kind eyes. Young enough that she glides over, so graceful her steps, without the need for the walking stick Sebille had seen her with at her shrine.

Amadia looks at her like she supposes a mother will for a child, and Sebille shrinks from her gaze; too piercing, too revealing for someone undeserving like her.

Of the Seven, only Amadia has Sebille's deference.

 _Why me?_  Sebille wonders. She feels like an elf in a town of only humans. Or maybe, they never did triumph against Braccus Rex and the rest - and now, she's stuck in some Void-cursed dimension to tickle their fancy.

 _Not you, my child,_  a voice whispers in Sebille's head.  _You don't need my help._

Sebille blinks, and Amadia materialises in front of her. Another blink, and Sebille sees no more.

The last she feels is a caress on her cheek, gentle and sure.

+

When Sebille wakes, she finds herself lifting her head from her arms crossed on the edge of a bed.

Light filters in from a stained glass window - what is it about human cities and crass opulence? - that Sebille catches herself with a jolt; she must've lost track of time. She hadn't expected her detour to take up the entire night, but she doesn't regret coming here. Not in the slightest.

Sebille groans, thinking about the day ahead. Reluctantly, she straightens herself in her chair, stretching her arms as w-

"Chief?"

Sebille freezes, arms still raised. Her first instinct is self-reproach for being caught unawares, but her second?

Her gaze snap to the woman lying on the bed in front of her. The woman Sebille is reluctant to leave by her lonesome, even if Divine duties clamour for her attention. Of all things, Sebille is drawn to Lohse's eyes - gone is the black as dark as shadow essence, her eyes now as blue as the rare sapphires lodged in veins of ore.

It's frightening. Because this shouldn't be happening. Just-  _how?_

"Impossible," Sebille breathes.

Lohse chuckles, a sound no more than a huffed wheeze. "Says the woman who defeated Eternals, Voidwoken, and even the Divine."

"How do you know?"

"You're alive," Lohse answers immediately. "And sparkling like a too-polished diamond. Suits you, by the way."

They're alive. It hits Sebille like the bone-wobbling tolling of the bells of the Grand Cathedral.

She can't help but smirk at Lohse's wisecrack. "So are you. But again-  _how?_ "

"Because I chose you, even if I needed someone's help along the way." Lohse's smile is dazzling for someone barely awake from a coma. "I chose us. Will  _always_  choose us."'

+

That's all to them. A series of decisions, their outcomes unchanged. Always: each other.

Sebille strokes Lohse's hair as they cuddle on the big double-bed, content with the silence; content with the feeling of being alive.

Lohse's heartbeat is steady against her skin.

+ 

For all the names marring her forearms, there's one name she doesn't stitch.

Because she doesn't have to.

**Author's Note:**

> and they lived happily ever after. together. obviously. whoever said being Divine meant being forbidden from any and all relationships?


End file.
